The Courageous Choice
Stop Managing Performance. Start Enabling It.
Why do so many performance reviews leave everyone frustrated? Edie Goldberg, President and Founder of E. L. Goldberg & Associates, returns to The Courageous Choice to talk about her new book, Performance Enablement (Oxford University Press). She makes the case against traditional performance management, a system she says was hijacked by compensation and built on the wrong assumptions about what motivates people. Key Takeaways Performance management was hijacked by compensation. It became a tool to decide pay, not to improve performance. People are far more intrinsically than extrinsically motivated, and tying work to extrinsic rewards can take the joy out of it. Managing performance means measuring it at year end. Enabling performance means giving people feedback, tools, training, and coaching along the way. Specific, challenging goals outperform easy or absent goals, but only if people discuss progress regularly. In one large dataset, only 4% of employees looked at their goals during the year. Set-and-forget goals can't motivate anyone. Only 21% of employees say they get meaningful feedback, and more frequent bad feedback doesn't help. Task-based, future-focused feedforward beats personal, evaluative feedback. Managers are trained to be critical, but a positive focus produces better outcomes. Companies with a strong performance feedback culture outperform others on every financial measure studied. People are more than their job descriptions. Internal mobility unlocks hidden capability, and AI curiosity inside your own ranks is a live example. Have the courage to stop practices that no longer serve you. Design for the 99%, and use performance improvement plans for the rare real issues. Timestamps 0:00 – Intro 5:17 – "Performance management was hijacked by compensation" 7:19 – Why extrinsic rewards take the joy out of work 11:59 – Managing vs. enabling performance 15:54 – The undisputed research on goal setting 23:00 – Only 21% of employees get meaningful feedback 26:16 – Feedforward, not feedback 32:46 – Only 4% of employees ever accessed their goals 40:06 – The courage to stop what's not working 44:03 – Edie's own courageous choice Connect with Edie Goldberg Edie on LinkedIn E. L. Goldberg & Associates on LinkedIn Thanks for listening to "The Courageous Choice." Leave us a review and subscribe so you don't miss any conversations. For more information, visit gigtalentagency.com or email podcast@gigtalentagency.com. #StartupCulture #OrganizationalTransformation #StrategicLeadership
